Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and computer-readable storage devices for enabling users of mobile devices to load funds onto an account with an online marketplace. Instead of linking a payment card with the account, or requiring users to purchase a plastic card from a retailer, a user enrolls his account with the online marketplace to generate a barcode that can be rendered on the mobile device. The user presents the barcode to a merchant for scanning. The merchant scans the barcode to retrieve a serial number, which is submitted to the online marketplace to uniquely identify the user's account. Then the user can provide funds to the merchant for loading onto the account, and the merchant can use existing payment infrastructure for processing traditional physical plastic cards for loading funds. This approach avoids costs associated with distributing, manufacturing, and stocking plastic cards, and also saves shelf space at retail locations.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A method for generating a location-based barcode for use at a point of sale terminal, the method comprising: receiving, from a user device and at an authentication server, an enrollment request, wherein the enrollment request identifies a user account, the user account existing prior to the enrollment request; in response to the enrollment request, generating a unique serial number and associating the unique serial number with the user account; transmitting the unique serial number to the user device for identifying the user account; receiving, from a point of sale terminal, transaction data including the unique serial number and a fund value, wherein the unique serial number was provided to the point of sale terminal via a machine readable code generated by the user device, the client device having first determined a current location of the user device, and then generated the machine readable code, automatically in a specified format based on known capabilities of the point of sale terminal proximate to the current location; and identifying the user account based on the unique serial number and incrementing an available fund amount of the user account based on the fund value.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the unique serial number is transmitted in plain text.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the unique serial number is transmitted encoded in the machine-readable code.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving, from a second user device, a second enrollment request that identifies a second user account, the second user account existing prior to the enrollment request; determining that an existing unique serial number has already been associated with the second user account prior to the enrollment request; and transmitting the existing unique serial number to the second user device.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the enrollment request is received from an app on the user device for managing bar codes from multiple sources.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving, from the user device and at the authentication server, additional account details as part of the enrollment request; and confirming the additional account details.
7. A system comprising: a computer processor; and a computer-readable storage device storing instructions which, when executed by the computer processor, cause the system to perform operations comprising: scanning a machine-readable code presented on a display of a mobile device, the mobile device having first determined a current location of the mobile device, and then generated the machine readable code, automatically in a specified format based on known capabilities of the point of sale terminal proximate to the current location; identifying, from the machine-readable code, a unique serial number associated with a user account; receiving a monetary payment of a fund amount value; transmitting, to a server, a payment transaction to apply the monetary payment to the user account, the payment transaction including the unique serial number and the fund amount value; and receiving a confirmation of the payment transaction, the confirmation indicating that an available fund amount of the user account has been incremented by the fund amount value.
8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the machine-readable code comprises at least one of a quick response (QR) code, a linear barcode, a two dimensional barcode, or a matrix barcode.
9. The system of claim 7 , the computer-readable storage device further storing instructions which result in the operations further comprising: prompting a clerk to enter the fund amount value.
10. The system of claim 7 , the computer-readable storage device further storing instructions which result in the operations further comprising: identifying, from the machine-readable code, location data indicating the current location of the mobile device; and transmitting the location data to the server.
11. The system of claim 7 , the computer-readable storage device further storing instructions which result in the operations further comprising: receiving, from the server, a balance of the user account; determining a top-up amount based on the balance; and suggesting the top-up amount.
12. A computer-readable storage device storing instructions which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising: receiving, from a point of sale device and as part of a request to process a payment transaction, a serial number and an indication of an amount of money, wherein the serial number was obtained by scanning a machine-readable code presented on a display of a mobile device, the having first determined a current location of the mobile device, and then generated the machine readable code automatically in a specified format based on known capabilities of the point of sale device proximate to the current location; identifying, based on the serial number, a user account; receiving from the point of sale device a payment associated with the payment transaction; applying the amount of money to the user account; and transmitting, to the point of sale device, a confirmation of the payment transaction.
13. The computer-readable storage device of claim 12 , storing additional instructions which result in the operations further comprising: pushing a notification to the mobile device of the confirmation of the payment transaction.
14. The computer-readable storage device of claim 12 , wherein the serial number is associated with a user account of the mobile device.
15. The computer-readable storage device of claim 12 , wherein the mobile device is associated with a second user account other than the user account with which the serial number is associated.
16. The computer-readable storage device of claim 15 , storing additional instructions which result in the operations further comprising: receiving an indication of an amount of credit to transfer from the second user account to the user account; and transferring the amount of credit from the second user account to the user account.
17. A method comprising: receiving, at a mobile device, a request to initiate a payment transaction for a user account; retrieving, from a memory of the mobile device, a serial number associated with the user account; determining a current location of the mobile device; generating a machine-readable code storing the serial number in a specified format based on the current location of the mobile device; and presenting, on a display of the mobile device, the machine-readable code to be scanned by a point of sale device as part of the payment transaction.
18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the serial number is managed via an app on the mobile device for managing bar codes from multiple sources.
19. The method of claim 17 , wherein the machine-readable code encodes additional data comprising at least one of location data, user account data, credentials, an amount associated with the payment transaction, a timestamp, or a personal identification number (PIN).
20. The method of claim 17 , wherein the serial number was associated with the user account as part of an enrollment process prior to the request to initiate the payment transaction.
21. The method of claim 17 , further comprising: presenting, on the display of the mobile device, a balance of the user account.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
March 3, 2014
April 14, 2020
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